Rovio has just updated Angry Birds Star Wars II with a handful of new characters and reward levels. After all, you always wanted to fling a carbonite-frozen Han Solo at pigs, you just didn’t know it. The game is also on sale for $0.99 (down from $2.99). Grab it while the grabbin’s good.

The full list of new characters includes Carbonite Han Solo, Jabba the Hutt, Wicket the Ewok, Lando Bird, Royal Crimson Guard, Tusken Raider, Clone Trooper, and Jedi Knight Kit Fisto. You can try them all for free, then purchase them if they suit your flinging style.

By now, if you’ve ever played an Angry Birds game, you know what to expect from a new installment in the series. You’ll fling birds at structures, trying to do as much damage as you can, while destroying the pigs inside. Just like the original Angry Birds Star Wars— and all the other games in the series– the sequel delivers exactly what you’d expect, with a thick layer of the Star Wars prequel trilogy spread on for good measure.

But don’t let the quality of the movies stop you from playing the game. The game dispenses with the movies’ story and acting, leaving you with good old physics puzzling fun.

You start out on Naboo, flinging birds that look like Obi Wan and Qui-Gon Jin, but after you beat a few levels you can switch to the “Pork Side” of the Force and play as bad guys like Jango Fett and Darth Sidious. The gameplay remains the same whether you’re on the good side of the Force or the bad, but the settings, characters, and special moves change.

Once again, each character has a special move that you unleash by tapping the screen when they’re in midair. Yoda does a ricocheting lightsaber spin move that turns pretty much any structure into sushi. Sidious uses his lightning fingers to destroy metal plates.

The game comes with 80 levels that take place-planet side or in space, plus a smattering of bonus and challenge levels. It doesn’t take too long to marathon through the content, but if you want to get three stars on each level, you’re in for a challenge. And if the past is any indication, you can expect more content to be released in updates down the line.

In-app purchase is on offer here, of course, but it’s not obnoxious. You can pay to use characters like Jar Jar and General Grievous in levels you wouldn’t otherwise be able to use them in. There’s also a line of Angry Birds Star Wars toys called Telepods that are similar to the toys for Skylanders. If you buy one, you can scan it into the game and use that character as you would an in-app purchase.

When you get down to it, though, Angry Birds Star Wars II is a lot like the original, which means it’s a lot like every other entry in the series. It’s enjoyable but familiar, just like the Star Wars movies if you’ve watched them many times before.

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The fine folks at Milkbag games have released Sidewords. A fun little diversion of a word game that is the devil child of crosswords and scrabble. For each level in the game the grid must be completed to win the level — this means that each letter at the top and side must be used. And not just the top or side, but each word must be made up of letters from the top and side to create a grid. It’s a pain, but in the right kind of way. Even the simplest of the levels can be a head scratcher until you get used to the game. Well worth the $3 as a diversion while we wait for Milkbag to finally release Snow Siege.

We’d like to thank our sponsor for this week, Zap Zap Kindergarten Math.

It’s not always easy to tear your kids away from their tablets and make them do something edifying. Thankfully, Zap Zap Kindergarten Math relieves you of this task by turning mathematics into a fun touchscreen video game. Win win!

Aimed at children 3-6 years old, the app makes math fun by ‘gamifying’ it, turning simple mathematics problems into little challenges so that your pre-schooler can learn and play at the same time.

There are more than two dozen mini-games, split across three categories: Numbers, Shapes and Measurements, and Add and Subtract. According to the developer the difficulty of these puzzles is adaptive too, so kids of any ability can be both encouraged and challenged.

Mini Dayz has launched and it’s a pixelated 2.5D open world that’s as brutal as the desktop version. In this game, the player is dumped on shore with nothing. They must scavenge around for food, water, and weapons while avoiding attack. It’s the kind of game where the goal is to stay alive as long as possible. But that will never be very long. It’s oddly free and seems to only have an ad on the main screen — for now.

Pewter Games has brought their charming point and click adventure The Little Acre to iOS. It’s an amazingly beautiful animated adventure set in a sort of hybrid magical / alien world. A great all ages adventure and very fun.

We’d like to thank our sponsor for this week, The House of Da Vinci by Blue Brain Games. There’s a reason Leonardo Da Vinci is the only renaissance figure who routinely shows up in video games you know. With his remarkable inventiveness and genius for creative problem-solving, Da Vinci was a gamer through and through. He was just born 500 hundred years too soon. Thankfully, there are studios like Blue Brain Games to bring him to life in videogame form. The House of Da Vinci, which comes to us courtesy of a hugely successful Kickstarter campaign, is a puzzler that seeks to channel the artistry and innovation of its title character.

You play as one of Da Vinci’s more promising apprentices, and you have the challenging task of trying to work out where the hell he’s gone. Was he assassinated by the church? Who knows. Has he quietly gone into a retirement? Perhaps. Did he accidentally invent a shrink ray and shrink himself down to the size of an dustmite? Probably not. Da Vinci’s workshop looks beautiful, thanks to some impressive 3D graphics, and the in-game environment is crammed with all the elaborate machines and crazy inventions you’d expect to find in the workplace of a renaissance genius.(more…)

Poly Bridge is out now on iOS, and it’s good to have it! It’s a great game and many seem to agree that it’s the best bridge builder game available. But the iOS versions, so far, is missing the sandbox mode. I would hope that it’s coming soon in an update. If you are all interested in physics puzzlers, grab this one. (Note: the video is for the PC version, I have yet to see a trailer for the mobile version, the developer Dry Cactus isn’t that great at marketing…)

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